


Lotus Eater

by Carrogath



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: F/F, Rebellion Story Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyouko gets lectured by a dead girl in a place where nothing ever goes wrong. It makes sense, probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lotus Eater

The first thing she had to remind herself of was that she was already dead. The second thing she had to remind herself of was that in no known universe had Kyouko ever been close enough friends with her to live at her _house_. The third was that this was some bizarre fantasy world created inside Homura’s head, a place that crawled with inhuman creatures and that changed at the whim of its creator. If she dared to explore, she would find new places sprouting up everyday—that is, if time really passed here. Death and time and existence, they all melded together into one confused concept, one that threatened to be stamped out by the influence of Homura’s weird Witch powers on her mind.

Madoka told her to wait. That was the worst part. Her powers and memories were on the outside; in here she was just an ordinary magical girl. In here, the only person with any real authority was, well...

“This’s a fake, innit?” Kyouko asked. She had taken up the majority of Sayaka’s bed for herself, lying on her stomach, and was reading manga and eating chips at the same time. She didn’t look at her.

Sayaka sat at her desk. “Yeah.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Figured it was too good to be true. I don’t remember what Mitakihara’s supposed to look like, but...” She stretched. “I remember being a lot more depressed than this. And you’re not supposed to be here.”

“I’m dead,” she said, absently.

“Not surprised.” She crammed a few more chips into her mouth.

She struggled for something to say. This would be the only time she got to see Kyouko while she was still alive. It was different, existence after death—not worse, not better, but different. It only seemed appropriate that they were able to talk in a place where nothing else made sense.

“Do you remember anything else?”

“Not really. Mind’s fuzzy. It feels... hmm... clogged up, like someone put something there where it’s not supposed to be.” She sat up, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “We fought demons, not nightmares. And...” She thought. “I don’t go to school.”

“Anything... about me?”

She shrugged. “Gone. Vanished. Just when we were startin’ to get to know each other. I wonder what I’m doin’ here,” she said, and looked at her, as if expecting an answer.

Madoka had explained everything to her. It had been difficult to process herself, though; explaining it to Kyouko now would probably just confuse her.

“This’s...” She thought harder. “This’s... This’s Homura’s doing, innit? I remember, now, a little, coming here. She’s dead, too, ain’t she?”

“Almost. She’s basically a vegetable.”

“And this’s her world?”

“Uh-huh.”

She grimaced. “Well, that’s twisted.” She looked outside the window. It was dark, flat, like a dream. “So if you’re dead, that means...”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“You’re not a fake?”

“I’m real, as far as I know.”

“How can you tell?”

Kyouko hated religion.

“If I told you there was an afterlife, would you believe me?”

She frowned. “That’s real unfair, you know. You of all people, tellin’ me there’s a god...”

“Not a god,” she said, “not really.”

“So then what?”

“Just a magical girl. A really powerful one.”

“Now you’re just messin’ with me.”

“You can believe that you’re living in a completely fabricated city, but you can’t believe in the afterlife?”

“I can believe in illusions,” Kyouko said, and looked at her, hard. “I can believe in lies.”

“Then what’s the truth?”

“The truth is that you’re dead, that I’m someplace that I shouldn’t be, and that I need to get out. I don’t know what you are or how I’m talking to you right now. But you’re dead. That’s the first thing I remembered. That you were _dead_.” She gripped the edge of the bed. “It’s not right. None of this is the way it should be. It’s so sick...”

“Kyouko,” Sayaka said, and reached out to her. She flinched. “I know this probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but...”

“Magic doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense,” she muttered. “At this point I’m ready to believe anything. But this city ain’t real. These relationships aren’t real. Like she’s tryin’ to run away from reality. Some... psychological shit, or whatever. I got sick of mind games a long time ago.” She lay down, flat on her back. “So, dead girl.”

Hardly a term of endearment, but she’d take it. “Yeah?”

“Tell me more about this all-powerful magical girl.”

“I came here with her. She wanted to stop Homura from becoming a Witch.”

“What the hell is a Witch, anyway?”

“Something bad.”

“I know that.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Doesn’t matter. I probably won’t remember.”

Sayaka looked up. “It’s something that magical girls used to turn into when they died, kind of like a... manifestation of their despair. So like demons, only stronger and scarier.”

“Why didn’t you turn into one?”

“Madoka stopped me.”

“Madoka?” She sat up. “The pink-haired girl?” She rose an eyebrow. “Really?”

“It’s hard to explain, but we...”

“Forget it.” She flapped her hand. “So you and Madoka—”

“And Bebe. Nagisa.”

“And her, you’re all trying to stop Homura from going Witch. Fine. Simple enough.”

“You believe me?”

“Sure I do.” She pulled her knees up to her chin. “If it means I’m gonna get out of here.”

Sayaka frowned. “You’ve got to have more of a reason than just that.”

Kyouko clenched her teeth. “I’m not gonna get lectured by someone who ain’t alive anymore.”

She stood up. “What, my opinion doesn’t count now that I’m dead?”

“Duh. Christ’s sake, Sayaka, you’re a ghost! An illusion, whatever. Who gives a shit what you think?”

“Come on! You’re not getting out of here without my help. You can’t half-ass it; what if... what if something bad happens? What if you die in here?”

“Well then, that’ll be all the better for me, won’t it? The afterlife sounds real goddamn peachy.”

“It’s not like that.” She balled her hands into fists. “I want you to get out of here alive.”

“I know it’s just some stupid mind trick,” she muttered into her knees, “but I really liked it here, to be honest.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not right. This... It’s a mirage. It’s impossible.”

“That means you are too, then.”

“Yeah, I know.” She looked down, awkward. It was inappropriate to say, “Yeah, things’ll get _way_ better once you die,” but she was so tempted that it hurt.

“How come she knew, anyway? How to make everyone happy, I mean.”

“Homura knows a lot. You’re just gonna have to trust me on that one.”

“She knew exactly what I wanted.” Kyouko looked away, at the wall. “Mami, too; she was lonely as hell, and here she looks so happy.” She punched the bed. “And I’m not sure who Madoka is, really, but Homura gets so awkward around her, she must have a crush or something... No one’s ever sad.”

“Because no one ever feels.” Sayaka sat on the bed beside her. Kyouko shuffled to the side to make room for the both of them, though she didn’t really mind the closeness. “You can only know what happiness feels like once you’ve experienced sadness. Success and failure. Pain and relief... You can’t get the good without the bad.”

“Now you’re really talkin’ like someone who’s dead.” She drew circles on the bedspread, lazily. “So... what’s it like, dying? There a light at the end of the tunnel?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why, ‘s’there some unspoken rule about it?”

“I don’t think it’s... something you can put into words, really.”

“I don’t wanna leave.”

“I know.” Sayaka squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

She leaned into the contact, wordlessly.

She wanted to say something, anything, to make it better: something about how saving Homura was for the best, how it was worth it. She was doing exactly what she had wanted to do all along—helping people, _saving_ them—but Kyouko wouldn’t understand. Death wasn’t something you thought about when you were alive, the same way she never thought about her life’s regrets.

“Tell me something that’ll make it worth it.”

She looked down at her. “Huh?”

“Usually I’d say somethin’ like, ‘Give me food,’ or ‘Buy me dinner,’ but that ain’t gonna fly this time. You’re dead, right? That means you gotta have... some kinda superior knowledge.” She got up off the bed. “Magic... That’s just another word for somethin’ we don’t understand. Maybe there’s somethin’ bigger out there, something we don’t know about. I’m willing to accept that. I don’t think Homura did all of this,” she gestured around, “without some... greater force on her side.”

“What do you want to know?” She wasn’t sure how much she could tell her, but the contact had made her giddy.

“Um...” Kyouko looked down, and shoved her hands in her pockets. She shook her head. “Nah. That’d just make me depressed.”

“OK.” She swung her legs back and forth. “What else?”

“How’d it make you feel? I mean, you seem to have a pretty good idea of what was goin’ on even before I did. That I was livin’ at your place.” She grinned lopsidedly. “We barely even knew each other, I think. So it must’ve seemed pretty weird.”

“I don’t know,” she said, and smiled. “What did you think?”

“Asshole.” She was already blushing, averting the gaze that Sayaka was trying to meet.

“Of course I liked it. It felt really... off, though, like we were forcing something that wasn’t meant to be.”

She covered her face with her hand. “Don’t say that.”

“You’re asking me what I can do to make it worth it, right? Leaving this place, and going back into the world... I’m jealous, honestly.”

“Why?”

“Because there are things you can while you’re alive that you can’t do while you’re dead. Like eat. You’re going to miss that, I promise.”

“And breathe? ‘M I gonna miss that too?” She looked unconvinced.

“You don’t feel hot or cold, or hungry or thirsty. There’s no incentive to stay alive, no survival instincts... no nothing.”

“No sex drive, either?”

Sayaka flushed red. “I-I...”

“Guess you still do, if you’re acting like that.”

“I was being serious.”

“I was too. What do you do in your spare time? Is it boring?”

“It’s not boring. It’s nothing. When you don’t need to be, you just... aren’t. Like a dreamless sleep.”

“So, when you’re here, like...” Kyouko sat on her chair. “You’re experiencing an illusion too. Of being able to eat and change clothes and stuff. Stuff you can’t do when you’re dead.”

“That’s right.”

She looked away. “A lot of other stuff you can do, too. Why don’t you want to stay?”

“Because I know it’s not right. And Homura’s smart. She’s going to realize that this is all a fake, and it’s not going to last. She’s experienced enough to know when something’s off.” Sayaka stood up. “You should go back.”

“Why, ‘cause you’re telling me to?”

“No, because it’s worth the trouble. You get to experience so many things while you’re alive, and you want to do as much as you can before your time is up.”

“It’s not as fun as you’re making it sound.”

“It’s only as fun as you want it to be.”

“I want to be where you are,” she said.

“No, you don’t. I’m dead.”

She gripped the back of her chair. “You’re right in front of me! How’m I supposed to reconcile one with the other, huh? You’re dead and you’re here and you’re spouting crap about Witches and Madoka and I don’t give a shit about any of that. Just... You’re right. This ain’t paradise; this is hell.” She stood up, slamming the back of the chair against the desk. As she was about to leave the room, Sayaka grabbed her arm.

“Wait!”

“What?” She wrung her arm. “C’mon, let go!”

“Where are you going?”

“I was just—I was just gonna go out for a walk or somethin’; it’s not like I can leave.”

“Oh.” She let go. “Sorry.”

Kyouko stood in the doorway, one foot in and the other out. She looked down, away from her. “Tellin’ me all this shit I don’t even understand, and I’m supposed to care anyhow... You still believe in love and justice, and all that? You still crushin’ on Kamijou?”

“I kinda gave up on him after a while.”

“You mean after you realized you were dead.”

“No, I mean before that. And... I do,” she said, with a nod. “I believe that magical girls have the power to save the world.”

“Seems like one already did, from the sound of it.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t.” She grinned. “You can keep that stuff to yourself.”

Sayaka slipped around to the other side of the doorway. “You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. Real or not, dead or alive, you still sound like the same old Sayaka. And I never agreed with her. No reason to start now.”

“I thought you liked me.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to agree with you.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“Why’s it matter, if I believe in being a hero or not?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Because... because it would make me happy, if you did. Like you learned something after spending time with me.”

“I dunno if a lesson learned from a dead person is worth remembering.”

“Then why are you still talking to me?”

“’Cause I can.” She leaned against the doorway. “I’d talk with you forever if I could. Even if it feels like torture.”

“Tell me how I can make it up to you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No. It is. I know way more than you do, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Tell me.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on!” She stomped her foot. “Everything you want is standing right in front of you, and you can’t even ask for it? Just how repressed are you?”

She staggered back. “What the fuck! You’re dead. I don’t wanna do anything with a dead person; that’s just nasty.”

“Did you like me or not?”

“’Course I did!”

“Then why won’t you admit it?”

“What’s the point of tellin’ you now? You’re nothin’ but a corpse.”

“I have feelings, too!”

“You’re dead!”

“I know that!”

Her chest heaved. “What’s the point of tellin’ you, huh? You think it’s gonna do anything for me? Hell, I barely knew you. It was... an infatuation. Nothin’ more than that.”

“It still meant a lot to you.”

“I’m not gonna talk about my feelings.”

“I want to hear about them, though.”

“Why? ‘Cause it gives you closure? Gonna go back to magical girl heaven all happy now that you know somebody loved you?”

“It doesn’t help you?”

“Doesn’t really matter if I don’t know how you felt in return.”

“I should’ve...” She shook her head. Her hair fell in her face. “No. I wanted to do this for you.”

“I don’t want your pity, damn it.”

“It’s not pity!”

“Then what is it? It sure ain’t love.”

“I just...” She looked down. “It’s different, when you can see your whole life from a distance. You... you notice all the little things you missed before. You wonder how things might’ve been different.” She looked up at her. “I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“The hell would I regret something like that?” She groaned. “I don’t. I’m just tired of seeing your stupid face. If you’re insecure, it’s not my problem.”

“So you’re over me already?”

“You’re fuckin’ dead. I kinda had to be.”

“That’s... kind of...”

“Harsh? Talking to you like this hurts way more, trust me.”

“Just... tell me if there’s anything I can do, all right? We may not see each other ever again—for a while, at least.” She stood in the doorway, vaguely nervous. Kyouko had a look in her eye like she didn’t know what to do.

“Anything, huh?” She took a few steps toward her, which was all she needed to close the distance between them.

“Yeah,” she said, clutching the doorframe.

She leaned in. “Really?”

Sayaka leaned back. Their faces were less an inch apart. “What... exactly... did you want?”

“Nothin’.” She swiped her foot against her legs. “Dumbass.”

She tripped and lost her balance, tumbling to the ground, and Kyouko laughed and hopped over the threshold.

“I don’t do girls who are too desperate. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

She stood up. “I wasn’t desperate.”

“I know, I know. You just... didn’t want me to forget. I don’t think there’s any way I could. You’re too annoying, pestering me even when you’re dead.”

“So...?”

“I’ll help you with Homura. Seems like she needs it.” She turned away, so that her back was to Sayaka. “You owe me for this, too.”

“For what, exactly?”

“Letting you get away twice.” She half-turned, and grinned at her. “That was real fuckin’ hard, y’ know. I expect somethin’ extra nice in return.” She headed for the front door, for the outside.

Sayaka stumbled over her words. “I-I’ll make it up to you—I don’t know how, but I will, I promise!”

She ran after her, and felt utterly stupid for it, but for some reason she felt happy, like the feeling she had when Madoka first came to her. Hope, maybe. If she dared to think it.

That was why they had come here, after all.


End file.
